And not all the clochs had entered the fray.
A shout went up from the western end of the harbor-the first of the Tuathian ships had landed, the soldiers on it swarming out to be met by Kianna Ciomhsog and her vanguard. The caointeoireacht na cogadh-the war-keening-burst from their throats as they charged. Jenna heard the first clash of steel on steel as men rushed past her, moving toward the battle. Another ship landed; a second mass of arrows was launched hiss-ing through the air; again, Jenna spent a tithe of Lamh Shabhala’s energy to destroy those raining down toward her.
"Jenna!" she heard MacEagan call. "Fall back!
Keep yourself behind our troops." She felt MacEagan's arm on hers, and she allowed him to pull her back through the press of soldiers until they stood in the shadow of the tavern. His face was drawn, his hand white around the cloch. His eyes closed and he groaned, staggering, and in her cloch-vision, Jenna saw the fire-creature recoil as a thicket of glowing spears thrust into its torso.
Through the smoke at the edge of the harbor front, Jenna saw a banner °f green and brown appear, waving above a troop of mailed knights not thirty yards away. Then the smoke obscured them as a squadron of Inishlander troops rushed past Jenna toward them.
The mage-demon appeared in the air over the harbor front, tendrils of smoke writhing about it like a mad cloak. It shrieked, its head seeming search the city, then it folded its wings and fell toward Jenna.
From there, what little vestige of order remained disintegrated into chaos, and Jenna was too busy to see what happened anywhere but in front of her.
The demon fell upon them, claws and horrible mouth open in fury Jenna sent a pulse of energy toward it, nearly too late: a taloned hand slashed air so close to her face that she felt the wind of its passage. The creature slammed into the wall of the tavern, timbers cracking and stone walls tumbling in. Splintered wood and sharp fragments of shattered stone splattered over Jenna; she ducked instinctively, raising her left hand to protect her face.
The mage-creature howled in rage and pain, leather wings lashing as part of the roof collapsed and dust rose in a gray pall. It stalked out of the ruin, thrusting aside shattered roof beams, as Jenna stood again. She sent her mind into the well of the cloch, sending arcing bolts of energy toward the beast. It howled and screamed as they struck and went down to its knees. Jenna prepared a second strike, knowing that alone the creature couldn’t survive against Lamh Shabhala. But it was not alone, suddenly.
Behind you. .! She could hear the scream of a chorus of ancient Holders in her head.
Light flared in her cloch-vision, slashing toward her from two direc-tions within the Inner Harbor: firebolts accompanied by streaks of azure lighting, both of them all too familiar to Jenna: Mac Ard and Aron O Dochartaigh. Cursing, Jenna brought the energy she’d gathered to bear on the new attack: mage-power exploded so near her that she was thrown back, landing on the paving stones with a grunt, her cloca torn and skin scraped away on her left arm and side. Almost, she lost her grip on Lamh Shabhala; the cloch-vision shuddered, blinked, then returned. The demon pulled itself erect again. .
… but a form of molten rock hurtled past in front of Jenna, colliding with the demon with a screech of rage; MacEagan, somewhere close by, shouted in unison with the creature. A fury surged through her, overlaid with the memory of Aron’s murder of
Ennis. She reached out with Lamh Shabhala, rushing back along the lines radiating from Aron’s cloch with the full force of her own cloch. But two additional clochs had joined in the attack; Jenna felt an unseen force drape around her; where it touched, it clung like a stinging spider's web. The net constricted, pulling tighter, and she had to divert some of the force of Lamh Shabhala to push it back and allow herself to breathe. At the same moment, she felt the touch of cloch on her mind. There was disconcerting sense of invasion, then it went away.
. and Ennis was standing before her, smiling, his hands out. "Ennis. ." Jenna breathed. Ennis, still smiling, raised a sword that ap-peared impossibly in his hands and slashed at her. She fell back, raising her left hand, and the blade cut deep in her forearm, opening a long wound through which bone shone white for a moment before blood poured from the gaping cut. The blade finished its diagonal slice at her hip, opening a shallower wound along her right side. The strike intended for Aron O Dochartaigh went wild, vanishing as she lost control of the power. Ennis was still smiling as he raised the sword-dripping red along its keen edge-once more.
"Ennis!" She screamed his name. A line of fire hurtled toward her- Mac Ard-and she barely managed to turn the fireball aside; she could feel its terrible heat as it exploded in one of the buildings behind her. She heard screams from behind but couldn't turn to look. The net tightened around her; in her cloch-vision, she could feel the snarling power of O Dochartaigh's and Mac Ard's clochs gathering for another strike.
Ennis-smiling fixedly like a mad creature-brought the sword down.
Jenna brought up a shield of Lamh Shabhala’s energy. Where the power met Ennis' sword, the blade hissed, smoked, and sheared away. Screaming wordlessly, Jenna sent the red-tinted fury past the useless weapon, hur-tling into Ennis' body, burning and tearing at it as if it were her own hands even as she cried. Ennis screamed in pain, calling her name like a curse, and she wept even as she pulled at the ribbon of energy that linked his image to the cloch that had created it. She could feel the Mage at the other end shrieking with agony as she raked the phantom with Lamh Shabhala’s power, and that fueled the anger even more. She ripped every last erg of energy from the other's cloch and sent its
remnants hurtling toward the netting laced around her. The impact loosed the constriction, and she rolled aside as azure lightning and red-orange fireballs both gouged craters in the earth at the spot where she’d been standing an instant before.
For a moment, she was free, but the cloch-vision roiled with bright points of power even as she threw shields around Lamh Shabhala to keep it hidden. Some of them were matched with the clochs of the Inishlanders: Moister Cleurach, MacEagan, Aithne, Galen. . Most of the Tuathian clochs were set against the Inish troops, but she could feel several search-ing for her. She wished she could make sense of the uproar and confusion around her. Men were shouting and yelling and moaning all around her; there was movement and the bright sound of clashing steel; the scent of blood and death, but she was standing alone in a small circle of calm She spun around, looking for MacEagan, but though she could sense his cloch close by, she couldn’t see him. "MacEagan!" she shouted. "Kyle!" There was no answer.
She thought for a moment she glimpsed Kianna through a gap in the clouds of smoke, sword lifted and bloody, hacking at two Tuathian sol-ders, then the smoke covered her again. Where Aithne or Moister Cleurach or Ri MacBradaigh might be, she had no idea. She tried to walk and nearly went down; pain shot through her right hip, and she looked down to see her cloca ripped and covered with gore, her left arm slathered with blood and the wound gaping and raw. The sight of it made her nauseous and weak and she nearly fell. Her fingers loosened on Lamh Shabhala, and the cloch-vision faded, the world going gray and dim. She forced herself to stand erect, to pull strength from the cloch.